Paula
'Paula '''is the playable female party member in the Super Nintendo RPG ''Earthbound and makes a cameo appearance in the game's sequel, Mother 2. The member currently playing Paula is the user Paused, and she joined as her on December 18 2006. Background Paula was a resident of Twoson and the daughter of the owners of the local Polestar Preschool. She was much admired by the children in the preschool, many of them wanting "to grow up to be just like Paula." Her psychic abilities made her celebrity in the town, constantly having reporters visit her home to interview her. It is unknown when Paula had the vision of what her future as of Child of Destiny would be, but one day she went up to meet that fate head on and allowed herself to be captured by a masked boy and Pokey Minch. She was imprisoned in a shack by the Happy Happism cult to be used as a sacrifice for Mani Mani statue. Using telepathy, Paula contacted Ness to help him rescue her and further aided him by giving him the Franklin badge--an item essential in defeating the Mani Mani statue. Once released from her cell, Paula fights by Ness' side for throughout the rest of the game except for when she was kidnapped again by Monotoli under Pokey's orders. While Ness and Jeff fought through aliens to rescue her, she had a pleasant chat with Monotoli and convinced him that he was aiding the wrong people. In the final battle for Earth's fate, Paula prayed to the people whom she had met on her adventure, connecting their well wishes together and using the power of those emotions against Giygas. Involvement Paula entered the Multiverse two years after the fight with Giygas. Ness had stopped visiting her in Twoson and in an attempt to gain his attention and go see him again, she practiced learning the technique PSI Teleport. When finally successful with the technique, she ended up in the Green Hills Zone world of the Rift. While wandering there, she fell into a sand-trap and in a bizarre twist, ended up falling through the air above the Sanctuary of Light. In the Sanctuary, she met a nice boy named Edward Elric, who gave her a place to stay. The two would later become more involved with each other until Edward's sudden disappearance. The first thing Paula tried to do in the Multiverse was to go back home to her parents. To this end, she somehow managed to travel to the deserts of Figaro. She came across the castle, where King Edgar late her stay and even travel with his guards to Southern Figaro. On that trip, Paula used her powers in a fight with bandits, impressing the guards. While in Southern Figaro, Paula followed a man named Shadow onto a roof and was accosted by another man. Shadow, who she had been told was a bad person, came to her aid. Upon returning to the castle, King Edgar hears about Paula's abilities from his guards and invites her to join the Returners, a group of rebels against the empire. Paula agrees, is made a lieutenant, and goes into basic training for a year where she learns melee combat skills. While out in field training with five other recruits, King Edgar was brutally killed by Kefka, who then sought out the trainees to force the join or die ultimatum. The five men with Paula joined Kekfa in attempts to save their families from the crazy usurper. Paula, hurt and confused by their shift in loyalties, teleports back to the Sanctuary of Light where she remained until the Refreshing Wave. Feeling rather disenchanted with people at this point, Paula resigns herself to living with Edward, figuring that she has changed too much to go back home to her parents. During this time, she is reunited with Ness (and meets Mia and Sasha Nien). Seeing Ness made her realize just how different she had become. Just before Christmas -- a holiday that Paula was looking forward to sharing to with Edward -- he disappeared suddenly. Paula went into a deep depression. Trying get out of the house she once shared with Edward, she went to Coruscant, having heard about a sort of clan of psychics, called Jedi, living there. While visiting the Jedi temple, it came under attack by some thugs. People aided the Padawan giving the guided tour in defending the temple. As the Padawan cut away limbs from the men, the depression that Paula was in had left her with little sympathy for the attackers and she used her abilities to burn many of them horribly, not phased by their screams. Pleased by her aid, the Padawan took Paula to see the Jedi council so they could thank her. Yoda was on the council, and he took her to a room and had her listen to the universe. However, because of the influence of the Sanctuaries in Eagleland, where the planet would sing to Ness, and her travels to other universes, Paula did not just hear the universe of the Jedi but that of the heart of the Multiverse. The Multiverse's Song filled Paula's head with the sounds of people's screaming and suffering all in a harmonic melody. After this disturbing experience, Yoda forces her into a fight, using the weapon that she had just seen cut a man's arm off while she herself only had her frying pan. Paula is driven to the point of almost killing Yoda until he called the fight over and left her with a lightsaber of her own and some mechanical orbs to train with. Paula had no clue as to what had just happened and went home to her empty house where she was haunted by the screaming of the Song. Paula's depression worsened and not even the reunion with Ness or new friends she made during this time. Tired of an empty house, one day she resolved to burn it to the ground and went through with it. Attracted by the smoke, Tails arrived to see what was the matter. Paula was rather chipper, seeing the burning of her house as a new beginning; leaving the memory of Edward behind. This happened to be the same day the Harbingers of Calamity attacked the Moon. Paula and Tails rushed to help fight back this threat, but once Paula left the safety of the Wing of Daybreak, the Multiverse's Song filled her head with more pain and suffering than she had ever felt before and causing her fall to her knees. With the Song corrupted by the darkness inflicted by the nobodies, Paula senses were muted, making her blind and deaf. Scared, she sent a mental call for Edward throughout the Multiverse, desperate to find and to not have to face the darkness alone. Edward never answered. Paula decided that the best thing to do to save the Moon was to Pray like she had done for her world, but after the unanswered to the person who had promised to always be there for her, Paula could not bring herself to ask for help from other people. She went with the next best option, and simply prayed to the Moon itself, connecting her heart to its and acting as an outlet for excess darkness to seep out of in order to prevent the 'death' of the moon. The amount of darkness that Paula funneled out was too much for her human body to withstand, and she was consumed by it and taken the Netherrealm. In the Neatherrealm, she was found by Solidus. The man was another Jedi, but Paula felt like she could trust him more than Yoda and agreed to learn more about the Force and ways of the Jedi: it helped that he had mentioned that with training, she could use the Force to see again. At this point in time, Paula was able to see where people were because she could see their souls, but not objects. After a short time, she returned to the Moon with Solidus. There, they found Tails, who had gotten a call from Sonic about attacking the Harbingers at their headquarters. Paula went with him to help and upon entering his lab, she knocked something over. Tails figured out that she was at least blind, and had her serve as back up for the attack. Once she was called into the battle, she brought down lightning from the clouds to disband the hordes of lesser nobodies, a technique that drew the attention of Kefka. Before Kefka could locate her, his faction mate turned on him and killed him. The battle was over in short order. With Kefka slain, Paula returned to Figaro with Tails to relieve the kingdom of his influence. In Southern Figaro, the two found a laboratory that tried to modify Espers with magacite. They had to fight an enslaved Esper along with Kefka's old guard. Many buildings ended up damaged and the townsfolk turned against them. Luckily, they were found by members of the Returners. These members also turned out to be four of the five men that Paula had been training with when Kefka first took over Figaro. Paula never was told what happened to the fifth man, but with the aid of the four, she and Tails camped outside of town. The next day, they awoke to the town smoking and rushed back to find Chocobo Knights lining people up. The leader came across as zealous, and was soon interested in Paula's psychic abilities It became clear that the man was going to kill the people who didn't side with him, and that he wasn't really a man at all. He was some sort of Esper, and he also summoned more Espers to attack Paula and Tails. More fighting ensued, and after the Chocobo Knights' defeat, Tails faction, Atrustic Valorians, dropped off relief aid for the town folks and helped put out fires. The two then separated, Tails to take care of the people and Paula to find the late King's brother, Simon. After all of the excitement at Figaro, Paula returned to the Moon and everyday life. At first, she tried to hide her handicaps, but that resulted in straining some of her acquaintances and she tried to avoid her faction, The Metaconcert. As Paula got used to her handicaps, it was easier for her to try to meet new people, who wouldn't notice the change in her behavior. Two of the main new friends made were Zack Fair and Claus. Zack visited her on her birthday and took her to his faction's Christmas party, and her and Claus hung out at the fair. She also met the redeem Roxas after he had purge most of the Harbinger's darkness from the Moon's heart. After hearing this, Paula decided that she needed to something to. As she walked out of the Wing of Daybreak and come across the very spot where she had died, she was transported to the heart chamber of the Moon. Paula felt happy to see the three hearts restored, but then saw the spots of darkness that Roxas had said still remained on the heart of light. This was the coruption of the Wing of Daybreak caused by Irvine Kinnaes slaying Luxord within its halls in vengeance. Paula approached the spots, and as she reached out to it, the spots seemed to come to her and she was knocked out. Upon waking, she was in the inner sanctum of her mind: a flower garden filled with psychic butterflies. Paula was drawn to a black butterfly that had been in her mind since her fight with Giygas as the prayer that was swallowed up in darkness. Once she touched this butterfly, she drawn deeper into her mind; a section that constantly replayed the battle with Giygas. She saw her younger self kneeling and praying, and she also saw Dark Seed, an entity that had been causing problems for several people in the Multiverse over the years. Paula tried to force Dark Seed out of her head, but all of her attacks doubled back on her as they had in the fight with Giygas. Dark Seed stabbed Paula through the heart, unlocking all of the pain and anger that she had been building up since Edward left her. Paula began attacking Dark Seed regardless of the reflection to no avail. She was only drawn out of her rage from her memories allowing Ness' voice to leak through as his image joined her younger self in their recreation of that battle. Remembering that violence didn't solve everything, she joined the two figments in prayer and finished the task of driving darkness from the Moon's hearts. With the hearts purified, Paula's voice and hearing started to come back to her, however, she was still blind due to Dark Seed taking residence in a part of her heart where she held deep shame and guilt. It is only Paula's positive energy in other areas of her life that keeps Dark Seed quiet and contained. Returning to the surface of the Moon, Paula takes up a new lease on life by allowing herself to grow closer to people despite the fact that at any moment they could leave her alone. She leaves her old faction to join the Multiverse Garden to pursue her Jedi training with Solidus, and because she liked to be around Zack. To her joy, her friends from the Metaconcert followed her to the school. Paula's life seemed to have taken a happy turn, with a few bumps on the road. One of her new friends, Alaric, got into a fight with Solidus and the two managed to get their minds all tangled up. Paula helped them to reclaim their own memories, but the fight had caused a Yol'Ari demon that had been residing in Solidus' soul since the war to start to rebel. Paula prayed to all of the students in the Garden to wish Solidus success and used the energy to empower him against the demon. On Hearts Day 2009, Zack visited her at her apartment. He acted distant until Paula asked him about it, thinking that he really didn't like her as much as she had thought. He admits to having had a black out because some alien, Jenova, had entered the Multiverse and he had her cells inside of him. Paula didn't understand much of his explanation, just that it was highly likely he would leave so he wouldn't accidentally hurt anyone due to Jenova's influence. He reassures her that he wouldn't leave unless she wanted him to, and she most certainly did not want him to leave. They have been together ever since. Some time later, Paula and Zack were sent out on a rescue mission to Madshroom Kingdom where zombie-like infected people had started attacking. A man who they thought was trying to help them turned out to be Spirit, one of the main generals for whatever was causing the infection. The fight was ended by one of Paula's prayers, which had the convenient side effect of severing Jenova's hold over Zack. Seeming closer to her happily ever after than ever before, she returned to her apartment in the Wing of Daybreak after the mission. She arrived in time for another Infected attack. Paula made gaps in the hordes to allow survivors to escape in the escape shuttle while Zack did all sorts of macho acts to recover her from her apartment. The couple escaped to the Garden, along with the guard named Arti who regularly teased Zack whenever he visited her. Paula felt horrible about leaving the Moon to the hordes, but consoled herself with Zack's promise of going back. Solidus then summoned Paula to their training room and told her that she will be taking a test to become a full fledged Jedi. He sends her out to recover a holocron from Roxas and to learn from it. He then left the Garden. Paula, already put out that Solidus left by himself, had an episode in the flotilla of ships around the Moon where she found Roxas (with Tails talking to him over a radio) and discovered that she had been left to learn from Yoda, the Jedi who had forced her into this life. Once her anger subsided, she apologized to the pair, and again to Tails for letting herself die on the Moon during the Harbinger attack. The trio realized that Spirit was on the Moon, and Paula leaves to collect Zack to make good on that promise. Paula and Zack joined a strike force and teleported off to the Moon to make sure the drop sight was clear so their teammates would not be eaten while they left the drop pods. The battle with Infected general, Spirit, was challenging, but both survived and continued on to the Wing of Daybreak to help finish off the last of the Infected. To tie up loose ends, Paula went back to Figaro one last time to find the late King Edgar's brother, Sabin, and put him on the throne of the scarred world. She joined the new Returner's effort to quell the uprising of a gang of bandits. As the trail lead closure to the hideout were Sabin had run away to after Edgar took up the throne, Paula's suspicions were raised. Nevertheless, it was still unexpected to find Sabin leading the bandits, angry at those who had abandoned his brother after his death. After Paula spoke to him in the middle of a fight between Returners and bandits, Sabin let go of his anger and took his place on the throne. Avatars As Paula has been aged considerably from her Earthbound appearance since entering the Multiverse, she uses different pictures of blond girls for avatars. Pretty anime girl 0.jpg|Winter 2010 avatar p8.jpg|Summer 2010 avatar flowers.jpg|Summer 2009 avatar px.jpg|Winter 2008-2009 avatar PaulaBlock.gif|Summer 2008 avatar paulanatsumatsuri.jpg.jpg|Summer 2007 avatar paula.jpg|Winter 2006 avatar Powers and Capabilities Despite being a female character wearing pink with a pleasant demeanor in a 1989 Nintendo game, Paula is a psychic powerhouse. She uses offensive psychic techniques to attack. Her PSI Fire creates strong blasts of flames that spreads over a wide area. PSI Freeze deals cold and wind damage and she creates a chilling wind to whip around opponents. PSI Thunder can both summon lightning down to the field, or generate lighting. Her psychic attacks can range from hitting a single target to hitting an entire party. She has just two support capabilities. One is a summoning technique that brings a psychic shield to the battlefield. The other is a loose representation of her canon Pray ability, where she can heal her party for an amount that corresponds with the number of people in her faction. Her time in the Multiverse has given her greater physical abilities. Her physical fighting style is defensive, deflecting and dodging blows until there is an an opening when she can strike her foe with either her lightsaber or a psychic attack. She received basic combat training from the Returner army. Her Jedi training built up her sword fighting knowledge and enough understanding of the Force to use telekinesis. Her time blind and dependent on her psychic senses aids her in feeling out an incoming attack. Quotes *"If you didn't get here soon, I was going to have to bust myself out." - to Ness when they first met face to face *"Does this mean that I can introduce you to my friends as my boyfriend now?" - to Zack at the start of their relationship Trivia *Was the first Earthbound/Mother character on the board. *Sacrificed herself to prevent the destruction of the Moon in a Personal Quest. Was then blind, deaf, and mute in the RP until very recently. *Is currently twenty-two years old. *Was the first female character to reach Battle Level 2 Strong. See also * Zack * Tails * Roxas External links * Psionic Gardens (Storage Topic) * Paula on the EarthBound Wiki Category:Player Characters Category:Dropped Characters